The Glass Castle Part III, Chapter 12 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • "Winter came hard that year" (3.12.1). Oops, did we just switch over to Game of Thrones by accident? Nope. Still The Glass Castle. Okay, moving on.
  • It's cold, and the family doesn't have heat.
  • The kids collect bits of coal off the street, but it's never enough to generate a good amount of heat.
  • Mom says, "We may not have insulation […] but we have each other" (3.12.8). She should write greeting cards.
  • One time, the family splurges on a visit to the Laundromat, and it's so warm there that Jeannette wishes she could stay.
  • The family often burns wood to make heat, but when the snow starts to melt, the wood in the forest gets wet and hard to light. So they douse it with kerosene to get a fire started.
  • A kerosene mishap earns Lori some minor burns.
  • At a friend's house, Jeannette sees a magic device. It's called a thermostat, and it makes heat appear out of nowhere.
  • Jeannette dreams one day having a thermostat of her own.